In Sunny Spain with Pilarica and Rafael

A growl went up from the benches, but Uncle Manuel interposed:

“And what wonder that her patience has lost the stirrup? Tired and hungry, and then baited like a bull by your rusty wits! Out to the courtyard with all of you and help Pedrillo curry the beasts.”

But Tia Marta dropped scalding tears of vexation into her bowl of puchero, though that delectable mixture of boiled meat, chickpeas and all manner of garden stuff, was already quite hot enough with red pepper and garlic.

Uncle Manuel, having seen to it that the food was prompt and plentiful, did not speak to any of them as they ate, but busied himself with adding up columns of figures in a much-worn account book that he drew from an inner pocket. When they had finished, however, he took from the inn keeper’s hand a little iron lamp, shaped like a boat, and helped Grandfather up the ladder that led to the loft. There he conducted them to two small rooms, roughly boarded off, with a low partition between them. Hanging the lamp by its ring from a nail, he opened the beds to make sure that the coarse sheets were fresh, and left them with a grave “Sleep in peace.”

The mattresses were stuffed with cornhusks of an especially lumpy sort, and that, perhaps, as well as the spell of Cordova, had something to do with the fact that they all slept restlessly, dreaming homesick dreams. Tia Marta heard the hawks wheel and whistle above the Giralda, and their faces were like the face of Pedrillo. Pilarica, nestling beside her, moved her little white feet, dancing for Big Brother, who held one hand hidden as if to surprise her with a gift when the dance was done. And beyond the partition Grandfather murmured the pet name of his twin sister who had died in childhood, more than threescore years ago, while Rafael’s red lips curved in a happy smile, for he stood with his father in the roaring heart of a swift battle-ship, which changed in an instant to a beautiful stillness, and they stood in the heart of God.

XIV

TRAVELING BY MULE-TRAIN

THE boy was wakened by Grandfather’s voice. The only man, lying on his back, was conversing with a spider whose long cobweb floated from a rafter.

“ ‘Weaver, why do you weave so high?’
‘I take my pattern from clouds in the sky.’ ”

“And it is cloudy,” announced Rafael, who had jumped up and thrust his head through an opening, that could hardly be called a window, in the wall. “How did you know, Grandfather?”

“Oh, I can feel the sky without seeing it, and this morning it is

“A patchwork counterpane in which
Not a hand has set a stitch.”

“So it is,” assented Rafael. “I believe we are going to have a rainy day.”

Yet any kind of a day is interesting to a child, and Rafael, having quickly disposed of a cup of chocolate as thick as flannel, was soon out in the courtyard, where horses were snorting, donkeys braying, and mule-drivers, called arrieros in Spain, bawling out guttural reproaches to their beasts. They were nearly all Galicians, these arrieros, with honest, homely faces. All wore peaked caps that increased their resemblance to a company of little brown gnomes. Among them Tenorio looked more tall and gaunt than ever. He was leading out a graceful, spirited mule, sheared all over except on the legs and the tip of the tail and decorated not only with the usual red tufts and tassels and fringes, but with a profusion of tinsel tags. She carried saddle-bags, but nothing more except a copper bell as large as a coffee-pot which dangled under her neck and marked her out as the leader of the train.

Several strings of mules had gone already and others were just getting away, their bells jingling merrily and their drivers in full cry. “Arre, ar-r-r-e, ar-r-r-r e!” rent the air to the accompaniment of cracking whips and thwacking cork-sticks. The courtyard was so nearly cleared that Rafael easily made his way over to Tenorio.

“Is that Uncle Manuel’s mule?” he asked.

“Ay, his Coronela, and a pampered beast she is,” answered the Galician. “The master loves her so well that he would give her white bread and eat black himself. But what do you think of our cavalry here?”

Then Rafael saw that Pedrillo and Hilario were getting a bunch of pack-mules into line. Their loads were piled high, but they were stolid, heavy beasts, unlike the riding mules, and though they grunted under the burden and tried to get rid of their packages by rubbing against one another, they were so docile that a touch of the staff would send each to its place. But Bastiano, he of the surly voice, was having difficulties with a new mule, white and sleek, that he was lading. Blanco’s head was roped up; the two bales, having been carefully poised to make sure that they were of equal weight and would balance each other, had been slung over his back, but as Bastiano was about to lash them on, Blanco plunged and the load was tumbled to the ground.

“Ha, Tough-Hide!” snarled Bastiano. “That is the trick you would play on me, is it?”

And plucking up a large stone, he struck the animal cruelly on the side of the head.

“No, no!” cried a childish voice, and Pilarica was clinging to his arm. “You mustn’t hurt the poor mule like that. Oh, you mustn’t! You mustn’t!”

“It’s the only talk he understands,” muttered Bastiano, his lean brown face slowly flushing under the horror in those dusky eyes. “You can’t treat mules like bishops.”

“Why not?” asked Pilarica.

“The world is coming to a pretty pass when a man can’t bang his beast,” growled Bastiano, dropping the stone, while Blanco planted his four feet wide apart in stubborn resistance to anything and everything that might be demanded of him.

At that point there pierced through all the tumult of the courtyard the shrill tones of Tia Marta.

“Pilarica! Rafael! What have you bandits done with my children? Smoked sardines of Galicia that you are! Of all the rascally – ”

A roar of laughter cut her sentence short.

“Here Aunt Anna Hardbread comes again to throw a cat in our faces.”

“Look out for her! Old straw soon kindles.”

“Call us names and you’ll be sorry. Though we wear sheepskin, we’re no sheep.”

“Is it true that Dame Spitfire is going with us?”

“Bad news is always true.”

“Give her civil words, then. A teased cat may turn into a lion.”

“Señora, may your joys increase – and your tongue shorten!”

“May you live a thousand years – that is, nine hundred and ten years more!”

“Ruffians!” gasped Tia Marta, as soon as she could get her voice for fury. “Cheese-rinds! If only there was a man, an Andalusian, here!”

And she glared on Pedrillo, who, more embarrassed than he had ever been in his life, was standing on one foot and scratching his bushy head.

“An Andalusian!” taunted Bastiano. “Much good that would do you. Everything with the Andalusians passes off in talk. They are all mouth. Crabs with broken claws could fight better than your Andalusian fiddlers.”

“What is Andalusia?” mocked Hilario. “A Paradise where the fleas are always dancing to the tunes played by the mosquitoes.”

Thereupon something like a diminutive battering-ram took Hilario in the stomach and he sat down so unexpectedly that he tripped up the long legs of Tenorio, who bit the dust beside him. Then Rafael, his black eyes blazing, leapt on Bastiano, who, stumbling back in his surprise against Blanco, was dealt a well-deserved mule-kick that sent him, too, sprawling on the cobblestones.

“Now they will kill me,” thought Rafael and drew his small figure erect to meet his fate like a hero. At least, if he had not captured five Moorish kings, he had brought three Galician arrieros low, and perhaps his prowess would be sung in ballads yet to be. But to his astonishment, and somewhat to his discomfiture, the courtyard rang with friendly laughter and applause, in which Hilario and Tenorio, quickly regaining their feet, heartily joined.

“Good for young Cockahoop!”

“Bravo! Bravo!”

“As valiant as the Cid!”

Even Bastiano, still sitting on the ground and rubbing his bruised shin, regarded the fiery little champion of Tia Marta and of Andalusia with an amused respect.

But Uncle Manuel, hurrying back from business in the city and expecting to find his string of mules ready and waiting, bent his brows on the scene in evident perplexity.

“It is not too late,” he said to Pedrillo, “to let you take the woman and little girl and the old man on to Santiago by railroad. My nephew may choose for himself, but I think he will like to ride with us.”

“Yes, yes!” urged the muleteers.

“We need a protector,” chuckled Hilario.